A Short Post On Short Stories

Bookfox has an excellent list of best collections of short stories of the decade, and links to another list on the AV Club blog. The two titles both lists have in common are Pastoralia by George Saunders and Runaway by Alice Munroe.

Perhaps there are others you could add yourselves? I am surprised not to see Yiyun Li on the list ...

Lately ... the short story seems poised to get its due. This fall, a handful of collections from writers such as Alice Munro, Lydia Davis, Kazuo Ishiguro and Ha Jin have put a dent in the dominant view of short stories as an inferior cousin to the Great American Novel. And changing technology and reading habits have provided a boost for short fiction as more readers discover literature through online literary journals and Web sites, or download short fiction onto mobile devices

says Alexandra Alter in The Wall Street Journal. And indeed, The Atlantic Monthly is going to be the first magazine to sell short stories for the Kindle. The e-book format looks like it is going to give a real boost to the genre, and also to the novella.

One important bit of short story news I forgot to post - the BBC National Short Story Award was won by poet Kate Clancy for her story The Not-Dead and the Saved is apparently only the third piece of short fiction she has ever completed! Prospect Magazine has very kindly put the story up for us online to enjoy.

James Tait Black Shortlists

The shortlists for the James Tait Black, Britain's oldest literary award have been announced. The contenders for the fiction prize are:

• The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro
• The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Seven Lies by James Lasdun
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Electricity by Ray Robinson

There are some very strong contenders: Orange winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, as well as Pulitzer winner Cormac McCarthy and Booker shortlisted Sarah Walters.

But the shortlist also spotlights other excellent works which have slipped a little more below the radar (well my radar at least!): The View from Castle Rock is a collection of stories by Canadian author Alice Munro: in the first part of the book they are based on material Munro uncovered when researching her own family history in Scotland, and in the second, they are based on more autobiographical material. (I've much enjoyed some of Munro's earlier stories - she has to be one of the best short-fiction writers alive.)

Dina will be very happy to see her friend and former coursemate Ray Robinson, on the list! (The only debut novelist on it.) Electricity, written as part of his PhD in creative writing features a protagonist who is epileptic but refuses the label. (On the Lancaster University website, Robinson describes his research and talks about working on his writing in an academic environment.)

Seven Lies is James Lasdun's second novel, and is a thriller set in Berlin and New York. The blurb on the award website describes it as:

... a page-turning study of betrayal, guilt and shame with just enough allegory about it to keep America’s National Security State in unsettling focus.

(I can see my friend Kaykay getting all excited about this one!)

You can read more about all the shortlisted fiction, as well as the books listed for the The James Tait Black award for biography here, and in the Guardian.